Poetry + Prose
est-ce que tu m’aimes?
tongue dripping with silver,
kisses all over your body like Paris rain in the afternoon.
est-ce que tu m’aimes?
touch like the summer – wet, hot, unrelenting,
and enrapturing you all at once,
until every inch of you is soaked in sweat.
est-ce que je suis le diable?
peut-être, peut-être pas
est-ce que tu m’aimes, encore?
ventured into untamed wilderness,
wandered the land our indigenous cousins once freely roamed.
crossed rivers and meandered through mountains, lost until it felt like home.
called your name aloud, but the trees didn’t know you,
wrote a little song, but the birds refused to sing.
naïve versions of you and me danced through the dark woods,
and then I watched as the rivers took us whole and washed us out to sea.
Grief –
all consuming and endless,
like probing through pitch darkness for a light.
Grief sends you into mourning nearly every night,
and rouses you with kisses from pain soaked lips at dawn.
Grief, like hanging onto the last few hours of sun before your mother calls you in.
before you realize the world is full of hurt people, bumbling around trying to process.
Grief,
used to push it way down deep,
Tried to drown and bury it, along with any other facet of my personality that could be deemed weak.
Grief?
Now I’ve grown a little older and it flows out like a river,
Sadness, joy, and love, all wrapped up in the freedom it takes to allow myself to finally,
Grieve.
no need to recount history,
know precisely who I am and where I’ve erred.
skimming through Dostoevsky, lying still out in the sun,
blazing to Young Dolph, fresh-cut grass grazing my naked elbows.
degenerate, dissident, long-lost descendant of Ramses II, though far removed from the glittering cities of ancient Egypt.
no need to replay your memories, know exactly where I’ve been and where I stand,
no past indiscretion shames me, no threat of harm from any man phases me,
no corporate shackles can tame me.
my voice is strong and clear like the sound of waves crashing into the shore,
I am a child of the summer, raised in the wilderness.
Je me suis perdu une fois,
mais maintenant…
trace me,
follow the nicks and scars deep down to my roots.
tilled in poor soil with not nearly enough sunlight,
yet still I grew undeterred, unwavering.
branches outstretched far and wide like my mother arms,
there to either cradle or shade you (take your pick).
no tolerance left for inaction,
devoid of patience for justice.
trace me,
the same fire raging you see before you
has always burned hot beneath the surface,
always been a card carrying member of the “others” –
the weirdos/punks/queers/misfits,
call us what you will, but we’re leading the charge now.
buying homes and settling in your quaint little areas of town,
and that raging fire is never going out.
False promises wrapped in carefully crafted hashtags and campaign slogans (quelle surprise),
Bombs falling from the skies
like ashes off the end of a lit cigarette,
All the while we’re still busy
waltzing to the music in our heads.
Hayden Winston 
You must be logged in to post a comment.